


Like Toy Soldiers

by Arya_Greenleaf



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clones, Failed HYDRA Experiment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HYDRA has been found out. SHIELD has collapsed. With no place and no person to call home, the Soldier resolves to take revenge on the organization that stole his life from him, that ripped him out of himself and thrust something alien inside. He resolves to eliminate them all.</p><p>On a self-sanctioned intelligence gathering mission to one of the many splintered and forgotten HYDRA facilities, the Soldier stumbles across something alarming. Something that rocks the small and still unstable world he has built around himself.</p><p>"I am Thirteen," the scrawny creature holding the gun said. Voice high and light and sure. Clearly trained. Form perfect, arms straight but not locked. Eyes, wide and watery-blue, focused on him through the sight. "Now let him go."</p><p>For updates, information, and all that jazz, check out the <a href="http://onheil-ferguson.tumblr.com/tagged/army-of-tiny-steves">tag</a> on my tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Only One

The Soldier crept silently along the corridor. The fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed overhead. The air was stale and overly warm. There had been minimal security, it was easy to take out the guards. A few well-thrown blades. A stinger lifted from the woman with the red hair to finish off a stubborn man refused to die quietly.

As the Soldier moved silently, he couldn’t help but think that Red let him steal things. It was always more than easy to find what he needed when he broke into her apartment. Stingers. Ammunition. Holsters. Blades. Memory sticks. Small explosives. Lock-picking tools. The occasional protein bar or meal substitute. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he appreciated it. He couldn’t say it out loud. It was still too odd to feel things, to be able to put a name to the jumble of things going on in his chest that he hadn’t felt in so long—that he thought had been trained out of him.

So, when the stubborn guard finally stopped breathing, the Soldier smiled to himself and moved on into the bowels of the base.

This clearly wasn’t the high-priority facility it once was. He had vague memories of being here at some point, the whole place vibrating with activity. It was hard to nail the memory down. So much was still fuzzy. So much was still running together. It’s not that the memories weren’t there. He had them. But it was as if they were made from a spool of thread that someone had cut into pieces and left in a pile. He wasn’t sure where one memory ended and the next began, wasn’t sure which to fit together to remake the strand.

It had to be a scientific facility if he remembered being here. They had rarely taken him anyplace else. There was certain necessary equipment for prep and wipe, for maintenance on the arm, for cryo. Whatever was still here had to be obsolete or unimportant. Even with how fractured the structure of HYDRA had become; they still guarded their assets.

Even if the intel he found here was out of date, it could lead him to the next outpost. Everything was worth checking out.

The Soldier’s eyes swept across the floor. There were footprints in the dust, a track of them. Petite. Some appeared to have been made by bare feet. Some shoed. All leading back and forth from the vault door at the far end of the corridor to another door just a few yards from where he pressed his body against the wall. He edged closer, running defensive scenarios through his head, trying to anticipate who could have made the tracks. A woman? A small woman. He could deal with a small woman quickly and quietly. Maybe she could be coerced into giving him what he wanted before he dispatched her, make his life a little easier and waste just a little less of his time in this place.

The door swung open easily, unlocked, well lubricated hinges. That was odd. Normally he encountered sealed doors, biometric locks, electric fields, magnetic doors. Generally difficult to break into. Not like Red’s apartment.

The light overhead was dim. The bulb was clearly on its last legs, but it offered enough light to make out that the room was a large storage closet. It was stocked with cases of protein bars, MREs, and meal supplement powders—all packed tightly onto the shelves near the back, boxes and plastic wrap disturbed near the front. Some shelves entirely empty. Handprints in the dust. Wrappers on the floor.

None of it could have come the security detail he took out at the entrance. There were no signs of traffic from that direction save for his own. A sound from above made him look up. Barely audible. The slightest knock. The ventilation system was as old as the building, made errant sounds. Could have been vermin. In his experience, neither case was the most likely.

The Soldier eased out of the closet, let the door shut slowly behind himself, and continued to make his way to the vault door. The red and yellow signage marked the room as high-level access only, dangerous, not to be disturbed.

But…the footprints…

He reached out to touch the handle, anticipating the gear to be stiff, to have a difficult time opening it.

The door creaked as it swung open a few inches. He cringed at the sound, opened it wide enough to slip his body through, and carefully shut it. At least if someone else was lurking, the creaking would alert him to their entering the room in the conventional fashion.

More dim lights. Maybe the generators were running low. The room felt cooler than the rest of the facility. He’d already visited the information hub, downloading everything he could onto a memory stick to look at later. Maybe he would leave it at Red’s. She might know more. She might be able to get past whatever encryption there was on the material he’d managed to take. He felt like he could trust her.

Another one of those strands of thread, separated from the spool.

The room immediately around him appeared to be barracks of some sort. He took quick note of the rumpled states of a few of the beds—thin sheets and poor excuses for pillows. Many of the bunks appeared just as dust-covered as the rest of the place.

Why would a dormitory need to be behind a vault door? Were they trying to keep someone out? Or in?

What was this place?

The Soldier cleared the room quickly, sweeping his flashlight along the floor and into the corners. The light fell on another door at the far end of the room. More red and yellow signage. More proclamation of danger. He was beginning to doubt HYDRA knew what danger actually was. The door was slightly ajar. He stepped through carefully.

It was like a punch in the gut. His heart leapt into his throat. His grip on the flashlight tightened as he tried to steady the now shaking beam of light on the bank of cryo containers directly in front of him. To one side of the room was equipment he was all too familiar with; tools to safely thaw a living organism out of cryostasis. To the other side was a more basic medical station.

Ten of them.

Ten cryo chambers.

He knew then that he had been here before. Before there was a dormitory in the outer room. Before this place was dusty and unused.

When he had been here, decades ago it had to have been, only one of the ten was in use. Only one of the ten had been necessary. It was one of the few curiosities that the Asset had held on to. Why ten? He was only one. Panic flared through the Soldier. It was clear that it wasn’t _only one_ any longer. _Not only one_ appeared to be at least six.

Six cryostasis chambers being actively used.

Six cryostasis chambers with frost on the windows.

Six cryostasis chambers that radiated coolness as he approached.

One cryostasis chamber with a repeated pattern of petite handprints—evidence that the person shoved inside wanted _out._

The Soldier’s blood ran cold in remembering.

He took a breath, steadying himself, and approached the chamber that had caught his eye, the chamber with the prints on the viewing window. He shined the beam flashlight down into the window, light colored hair at the crown of a head barely clearing it.

“What the fuck is this?”

The sound of a rusty hinge squealing made him around to see the source of the sound. A thin body dropped down from the vent overhead and hit the ground. It was all limbs and angles draped in dingy white scrubs that seemed far too large for the skin and bones body underneath. It—he?—rushed toward the Soldier with an awkward stride.

The Soldier batted his attacker away easily and strode for the door, not in any mood to stay in this room for longer than he had to—a fight in the corridor would go faster, there was no where to hide, nothing to throw or weaponize. As he placed his hand on the door to pull it open, his attacker grabbed him. Skinny legs wrapped tightly around his waist, bony ankles locked together. An arm wrapped around his throat and squeezed, the free hand tangled into his hair at the back of his head and pulled.

The Soldier grabbed at the arm around his throat, whipped his body from side to side. As weak as the grip of limbs around him was, it stayed fast as if by sheer force of will. He reached backward and gripped the loose fabric of the shirt the attacker was wearing. He wrenched hard. The gangly body flew forward. Fingernails scratched welts into his throat. The throbbing in his head told him he’d have a bald spot when he checked.

The attacker, who now, so close, the Soldier realized was _just a boy_ , wheezed and kicked and clawed. “Stay down!” He hissed as he moved to crouch over the writhing body, capturing the boy’s wrists in his hand, the gears whirring and clicking to life as the panels recalibrated to accommodate the grip and position. The boy refused to stay down, landing surprisingly painful kicks to the Soldier’s groin and gut, desperately trying to free himself. “Stay—“ he pressed his flesh-and-blood hand down forcing the boy against the floor. “Down.” The boy winced as the back of his head cracked against the concrete floor. His eyes rolled back. He stopped moving.

“Shit.”

He was just a boy. Whatever the Asset was, the Soldier did not want to be. The Soldier did not want to kill a boy.

But he was breathing. Shallow and shaky. But breathing.

He cautiously let go of the boy’s wrists. Couldn’t be anything more than a teenager. He reached across the floor to pick up the flashlight, dropped in the scuffle. He shined the light down into the boy’s eyes, pulling up each lid, slightly taken aback by the length of the sandy blonde lashes. Responsive. He pressed his fingers to the pulse point at the boy’s throat. Fluttery, but present.

The Soldier wasn’t going to let a boy die for HYDRA. He couldn’t just leave the kid here. And there was still the matter of whom or what the six active cryostasis chambers were holding.

He reached toward his belt, prepared to call for help. It would be a few hours before Red could get here. She was back in New York with the archer. But she would come. She would help.

He flipped open one of the several pouches lining the belt, about to take out the phone she’d given him. One that he’d inspected for bugs and locators and disabled the GPS on, that he checked as meticulously as his weapons.

 _Click_.

“Move away.”

The Soldier hadn’t heard the door open.

No, he had heard it. But he was too lost in his own thoughts to register the threat. That was one thing the Asset never allowed. It never allowed anyone to gain the upper hand. Until the Man on the Bridge. Until the hellicarrier and the crash. Until it failed.

The Soldier was still trying to find the balance between refined weapon and functioning person.

And this is how he would pay for it.

“I said: _move away._ ”

“I’m moving.” He meant to move. His body wouldn’t cooperate. Not now that he was really looking at the boy, the harsh light from the flashlight making his features stand out in stark relief. He _knew_ this face.

“I haven’t got any issue killing you. I’ll put a bullet in your brain.” The barrel of the gun brushed against the back of his head, raw from the hair pulling, for emphasis. The Soldier slowly moved away from the still form beneath him. He turned slowly, taking in the shape of the person poised before him. Same dingy scrubs. Bare feet. Same dirty, stringy, sandy hair and long eyelashes. Same bee-stung bottom lip. Same angles. Equally as skin and bone.

There was something so perfectly controlled, and yet, _feral_ about the person on the other end of the handgun.

The Soldier put his hands up slowly, not wanting to raise alarm. The face was so young. Couldn’t be much older than the boy on the floor.

Such a young face. Such fire.

And so very frighteningly familiar.

“Who _are_ you?” No answer. Just a roll of the shoulders. The tip of the tongue swept across the bottom lip. A strand of hair fell across the forehead, short and choppy as if someone had simply taken a pair of scissors and hacked away whatever couldn’t be tamed. The Soldier moved from his crouch to a knee, placing a hand down on the rumpled fabric of the scrub shirt bunched up at the unconscious boy’s side. “I’m James. I—“ What the hell was he doing? “I came to help.” He tried to arrange his features into the most honest expression he could muster. He _was_ there to help. To help eradicate what parts of HYDRA he could. So it wasn’t a complete lie.

"I am Thirteen," the scrawny creature holding the gun said. Voice high and light and sure. Clearly trained. Form perfect, arms straight but not locked. Eyes, wide and watery-blue, focused on him through the sight. "Now let him go."

The young woman—he was sure of it—took a deep breath. The firearm was still trained on him, unwaveringly.

“Thirteen?”

“Yes. And he is Seven.” She pursed her lips. “Now stand up and move away.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Enough.”

“Do you know me?” The Soldier stood slowly, took a step to the side, away from the boy on the ground. Away from Seven.

“No.”

“Are you and Seven…and the others…are you alone here?”

“No.” Her voice went soft and rough. “We are not alone.”

“Thirteen, I’ve already taken care of the men at the door. I’m here to help.”

Her finger moved away from the trigger and rested against the side of the guard. The gun went down. Perfect discipline. He imagined he could see the gears in her head working rapidly. She nodded once and moved to place herself between the Soldier and Seven. She watched him carefully as he took out the phone he had been reaching for when she had first pointed the weapon at him.

”Natalia. I need an extraction.”


	2. Shared Life Experience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING** brief suicide mention during conversation between James and the clones as to how many of them there are. Approximately half-way down the page.

“Holy shit.” The archer stood in the middle of the cryostasis room, his mouth agape. “This is bad.”

“James? Are there others?”

“These and the two out there. I’m not sure if there’s more. They won’t tell me. They’re scared. The boy needs medical treatment.” There was the sound of violent retching from the dormitory outside. “I’m pretty sure he’s got a concussion.”

“Whadd’you mean _the boy_? Aren’t they both?”

“No. The other is a girl.”

“This is really bad.”

“You keep saying that but doing nothing to help the situation.”

He took a step forward, jabbing an accusatory finger toward the archer. “James.” Her voice was soft and full of warning. Natalia put her hand on his arm, guiding it back toward his side. “Arguing with each other isn’t going to help. We need to know if there are more…awake.”

The Sometimes-Rage-Monster and the Sometimes-Robot had been making a slow circuit of the room, studying the instrumentation. The soft looking man with the graying hair turned around, wiping his eyeglasses on the tail of his shirt. “This is beyond either of our expertise. Do you know anything…remember anything…about…”

“Being pulled in and out of stasis?” He nodded. “No, not much more than being shoved in a tube and feeling like I was going to die and then waking up on an exam table the next time they pulled me out.” He nodded again, started to make another circuit of the room.

“We absorbed some of SHIELD’s eggheads after everything went down. I can see if any of them were around when they thawed the Capsicle out.”

He cringed. It had been well over a year since those three frenetic days. Sometimes, he watched Rogers. If only to see if there was something small that could tell him: _this is how you are supposed to be, this is who you are._ Instead, more often, he had sought out Natalia. He knew her. Somehow. And he knew that she would not force _Bucky Barnes_ down his throat. She let him figure things out, tie the strands together on his own.

Reference to the Man on the Bridge still made his hackles rise.

Natalia shook her head, “Most of them were HYDRA.” Her brow came together in a disgusted expression. “Which in hindsight makes sense.” She looked to James, “If you saw them, could you pick out any of the techs who worked on you?” He nodded curtly and turned on his heel. Those he had not disposed of had been turned over to the Avengers through Natalia or to the United Nations. They were being held in a covert facility.

“Thirteen.” His voice sounded gruffer than he’d intended. The girl stiffened, her arms remained protectively around Seven while he leaned over a garbage can snagged from the cryo room. “Is he okay?”

“No.”

“We’re going to take him,” her eyes widened, a furious expression settling over her features. “We’re going to take both of you. Away from here. Away from HYDRA. You’ll be safe.”

“I find that hard to believe, _James._ ”

He wondered if stubbornness could be a genetically inherited trait. Oh yes, that he remembered. He knew exactly where and to whom that particular strand tied. “Thirteen, we need to know if there are more of you out of stasis.”

Her jaw clenched and unclenched, the muscle beneath the porcelain surface rolling back and forth. Seven coughed and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He addressed her as something that sounded suspiciously like “Ear,” telling her to comply. She clucked her tongue at him and eased him back up onto the bunk. They cared for each other, clearly. They’d been handled far differently than the Asset had been handled. They were affectionate. Thirteen appeared to be as motherly as she was fearless. She had instructed James to move Seven to the bunk, keeping her firearm trained on him steadily the whole time. She stood guard until the boy had come to. The gun was still close by, resting at the top of the bunk in easy reach.

“There is one more.” Seven’s voice was rough from the effort of being sick. Thirteen looked furious. He yelped when she gripped his hand just slightly too hard. “He is hidden.”

“Stop it, Sie.” The name sounded hard, like the letter _Z_. “We do not know that we can trust them.”

“We don’t have a choice.” She looked away; he gripped her chin in his bony fingers and made her look at him. “What is the lesser of two evils? Stay? Or go? They are dead. They would not have allowed these people inside if they were not. We cannot survive here forever. Give him a chance. Give the others a chance.” Her chin quivered.

“Fine.” She made him sit up, placed the gun into his hands. “Watch him.” She flashed a dangerous expression in James’ direction.

When Seven was situated, sight trained on the man who he’d attacked, hands not quite as steady as Thirteen’s, she crossed to the far side of the room. She stood on the edge of the bottom bunk in the last row and hoisted herself to the top. On her knees, she carefully unfastened the vent cover in the ceiling.

James couldn’t help it when his eyes widened in disbelief. Two small, dirty feet emerged over the edge of the opening in the ceiling. The child eased itself out into the safety of Thirteen’s arms. “I thought we were playing?”

“Seven lost.”

“He always loses.”

The child’s knees were vaguely purpled, presumably from sitting or crawling in the vent. He clung to Thirteen’s leg when she climbed down from the top bunk and pulled him down to the floor. He studied James with furrowed brow, bottom lip sucked into his mouth. “Do we have to go to sleep again? Blue sleep?”

James steeled himself, the tinny, high-pitched voice sending a jolt down his spine. “No.”

“This is Twenty-Four.”

“How many of you are there, really?”

Seven cleared his throat; speaking over Thirteen’s efforts to quiet him, gun still trained on James’ chest. “The three of us. Six sleepers. There were more. There aren’t now.”

“There are four empty stasis chambers.”

“He self-eliminated.”

Natalia paused in the doorway, her face a careful mask of disinterest but her eyes full of horror. “When?”

“Before they left us.”

“Who left you?” Thirteen shrugged, either unwilling or unable to give a direct answer. James had an inkling as to who started this…abomination. Natalia continued, “What happened to the others?”

“They either died of illness or were eliminated. No others did what Three did.” Thirteen plucked Twenty-Four from the floor, the child had begun to cry quietly. She held him close, his fists curled tightly into the fabric of her scrub shirt. “Hush, Tiff.” She jerked her head toward the boy in her arms. “He is the last.”

It took a fair amount of convincing to get Thirteen and Seven to disarm. It took a fair amount more to convince Twenty-Four that they did not plan on making him go to “the blue sleep.” Eventually, Natalia’s soft tones and reassurance convinced the three of them to follow the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and James out of their small, dimly lit world and toward daylight and the waiting quinjet.

Twenty-four squinted in the bright sunlight of early morning, unused to natural illumination. He evidently had never been outside of the small world contained within the base. He started to whine, nervous. Thirteen hushed him, smoothing the sack-like shift over his backside and thighs as she lifted him, unwilling to let him walk barefooted over the gravel outside. Thirteen halted, Seven sticking close to her side. “What will you do with the others? How will you help them?”

Natalia explained once again that Stark and Banner were staying behind. She seemed unconcerned. Stark had a suitcase that somehow contained his entire suit. Banner’s armor was always close at hand. They would organize safe transport. The other would be brought back to New York, as soon as possible. The archer went ahead to ready the quinjet for takeoff.

“They will come for us.”

“They won’t. They’re dead.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Ir, _please_ , let’s go.” Her eyes flicked from Seven to James.

“We’re not going to allow anything to happen to you, Thirteen. You or the others.” Natalia smiled, radiant. It made James’ heart ache. She’d said much the same to him the first time he came to her doorstep. “But you have to trust us.” She put her hand out, indicating the quinjet that was purring to life, the hatch door lowering to allow them entrance.

“Sie?”

“We cannot take care of Tiff on our own. Not if he gets ill. And the others…”

Thirteen nodded and strode toward the ramp where the archer was waiting, picking her way carefully over the uneven ground, shielding the child in her arms from the sight of the HYDRA casualties at the gate and the tacky slicks of blood around them. James took a last look back at the facility. Stark would be busy trying to unencrypt and mine whatever information he could on whatever research and development had gone on there. Banner would be trying to determine how best to move forward with the other… _clones._

Because that was what they had to be. They looked and sounded far too much like the original to be anything else. Steve hadn’t been around when SHIELD was founded. Hadn’t been around when HYDRA got its hooks in. They were too old to have been made after he was found in the ice. He shuddered to think at how long it had been going on, how they’d obtained samples.

Natalia and Barton strapped the three into seats, gave them explicit instructions not to unfasten their harnesses and belts. Thirteen pushed Barton’s hands away, “I have been on an aircraft before.” He shared a look with Natalia and backed away, heading toward the cockpit.

“Delta ready for lift off. Package secure. Enroute for…”

Barton was babbling into his headset. James focused his attentions on the floor in front of him. He was in far over his head. He felt like he was drowning.

They would have to get Rogers involved.

It wouldn’t be right for him not to know.

James wished he hadn’t chosen that base.

“Director Hill,” Natalia drawled, a smirk on her lips and a sparkle in her eye. I had taken a far shorter time than anticipated to reach the hellicarrier floating just off the coast.

The woman with her dark hair swept back into a knot smiled in greeting. She was far less severe than the last director. The one James…no, the one the Asset had killed. Director Hill moved with a dangerous air, ready to jump into action.  She directed them toward a conference room where they left Thirteen, Seven, and the child. “We’ll be right back, alright?” She was warm and gentle. James, Barton, and Natalia joined her behind the two-way glass looking into the room.

“We don’t have the facilities to hold them right now. I’ve spoken with Stark, made arrangements with Pepper. You’ll be taking them back to the Tower. There’s space to accommodate them there. Stark has his own medical facility. I’m sending you Jemma Simmons to coordinate some kind of an evaluation. We need to know what we’re dealing with. Did you figure out how many there are? Stark hasn’t forwarded the data yet.”

“Those three. Six more in stasis. The kid is called Twenty-Four. The girl, Thirteen, said he was the last.” A petite man in a laboratory coat entered the room, stethoscope draped around his neck. He moved to sit beside Seven, Thirteen immediately standing guard and watching his hands carefully as he shined a pen light into Seven’s eyes, checking for further signs of injury. Over the course of their flight, he’d seemed to bounce back from his symptoms.

“Simmons has some ideas about bringing the others safely out of stasis. We’re going to send her to Stark and Banner.” Evidently they did not want to risk the possibility of purposefully bad information from the incarcerated HYDRA loyal scientists. James was quietly relieved. He did not want to face them again. He didn’t think he would have the capacity for restraint. “The others will be transported to the Tower for evaluation and lodging as well.”

“Has anyone called Cap yet? I feel like he needs to know about this.” Barton hazarded a sidelong glance at James.

“No, we haven’t contacted him. He’s somewhere in Europe with Wilson. Following a lead on the Winter Soldiers whereabouts.” James’ stomach flipped over. “I’m not condoning this…this wild goose chase. But I’m giving you a choice, Barnes. Clear out before we contact him or stay and help. Just don’t…toy with him. It’s cruel.”

James felt his face flush with heat at the jab, “I’m not—“ He clenched his jaw and watched as the doctor checked vital signs, made sure there was no immediate trauma to attend to. “I’ll stay.”

Hill’s expression softened, “Good. I think it’ll be beneficial to have someone around with shared life experience.” Natalia raised a brow. James wasn’t sure if she meant for the clones or for Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to let this get too rambly. I hope you're all enjoying it.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed the intro. I've seen a few posts on my dashboard about the possibility of HYDRA getting a hold of Steve's DNA in some way and attempting to simply clone him to frankly hilarious results. I couldn't resist, so this is my contribution to the party.
> 
> I'll add tags/characters/relationships as they become relevant. I'm not entirely sure the exact path that I want the story to take yet.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback.


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